China Xinjiang military boss booted off ruling council after attack

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party announced on Sunday the removal of the military chief of restive Xinjiang from the region's governing council, following a car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square blamed on Islamist militants from Xinjiang.

The official Xinjiang Daily said in a brief front page report that Peng Yong had been sacked as a member of Xinjiang's Communist Party Standing Committee, and would be replaced by Liu Lei, an army veteran with more than a decade's experience in the region.

The newspaper gave no reason for the move, but the party frequently removes top officials following such incidents as it seeks to apportion blame.

The incident was especially embarrassing for the stability-obsessed party given the billions of dollars it spends every year on domestic security, not only in Xinjiang but across the country, and that the crash happened in the heart of Beijing.

Peng was appointed commander of the Xinjiang military region in July 2011. It is likely that he will also be relieved of his military duties.

Real power in China lies with party bodies rather than government ones, as that is where the key decisions are made.

The government has blamed Islamist extremists plotting holy war after a vehicle police said was laden with gasoline ploughed into bystanders outside the front entrance of the Forbidden City, on the north of Tiananmen Square.

The three people in the car died, as did two tourists. More than 40 were injured. Police have also detained five suspected accomplices.

Security has been stepped up in Beijing and Xinjiang following the incident.

Beijing party chief Guo Jinlong has urged the police to improve their capacity to collect intelligence and take precautions against further attacks, the city government-run Beijing Daily said on Sunday.

Guo urged police and security forces to "look for vulnerable links" and "learn the lessons" from the incident, the report said.

Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur minority, many of whom chafe at China's restrictions on their religion, culture and language, though the government says they are granted broad freedoms.

Xinjiang has been wracked by unrest in recent years, blamed by the government on the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement which Beijing believes was also responsible for last week's incident.

Rights groups, exiles and some experts say, though, that there is little evidence of a cohesive extremist movement operating in Xinjiang.

In 2009, some 200 people died in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi during riots which pitted Uighurs against the majority Han Chinese.

(Reporting By Dominique Patton and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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China bans officials sending new year cards at public expense

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party on Friday banned officials from sending or printing new year cards or calendars if they have been paid for with public funds, the latest step in the government's crackdown on waste, extravagance and graft.

"The printing and production are more and more extravagant, and the waste is greater and greater," the central government said on its main website (www.gov.cn).

"This is not only an expression of formalism, but drives extravagance."

The order covers all government and party departments, state-owned industries and financial bodies, though an exception will be made for those which deal with foreigners and overseas Chinese, as long as they rein in costs, the notice said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sought to address growing public anger at the illegal or unethical behaviour of party officials, especially those with flamboyant lifestyles, often seen as a sign they are corrupt.

Since taking office in March, Xi has called corruption a threat to the party's survival and vowed to go after powerful "tigers" as well as lowly "flies".

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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China to end use of prisoners' organs for transplants in mid-2014

By Li Hui and Ben Blanchard

HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China, the only country that still systematically takes organs from executed prisoners for use in transplant operations, plans to end the controversial practice by the middle of next year, a senior official said on Saturday.

By mid-2014, all hospitals licensed for organ transplants will be required to stop using organs from executed prisoners and only use those voluntarily donated and allocated through a fledging national system, said Huang Jiefu, a former deputy health minister who heads the organ transplant reform.

The supply of human organs falls far short of demand in China due in part to a traditional belief that bodies should be buried or cremated intact. An estimated 300,000 patients are wait-listed every year for organ transplants, and only about one in 30 ultimately receives a transplant.

That shortage has driven a trade in illegal organ trafficking, and in 2007 the government banned transplants from living donors, except spouses, blood relatives and step- or adopted family members.

Huang, an Australian-trained transplant surgeon, admitted the problem of an organ black market was not something China would be able to easily resolve.

"The illegal trade of human organs will be inevitable in Chinese society in the years to come. The huge demand for organs is one of the causes. As long as there's a gap between supply and demand, illegal organ trafficking won't disappear, but the government will continue to crack down on it," he told Reuters.

INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM

Beijing said in August it would begin to phase out the practice of using executed prisoners' organs this month. Huang did not give an exact date for a ban on their use.

"Using executed prisoners' organs for transplants does not meet with the ethical standards universally accepted, and has always received criticism from the international community," Huang told a meeting of health and hospital officials in the eastern city of Hangzhou. "China's organ transplant reform is the government's political commitment to the people, and the world."

"There has never been a law that regulates the use of prisoners' organs. Enforcement of the policy has many loopholes, and there have been a lot of scandals that tarnish the image of the Chinese government," Huang said.

Courts, which oversee executions, have been told they are no longer allowed to offer organs to hospitals, Huang later told Reuters, noting a trend in China anyway for fewer executions. "China has meted out fewer and fewer death sentences, so reliance on death-row inmates' donations will become a dead end. So we must rely on voluntary donations," he said.

China does not publish the numbers of people it executes, though the World Coalition Against The Death Penalty estimates it was about 4,000 last year.

VOLUNTEER PROGRAMMES

To cut back on its dependency on prisoners' organs, China has launched pilot volunteer organ donor programmes in 25 provinces and municipalities since February, with the aim of creating a nationwide voluntary scheme by the end of this year.

The number of transplants using donated organs has jumped to more than 900 cases in the first seven months of this year from 245 in 2011, but is still less than half the number of organs from death-row inmates, according to data provided by Huang.

Rights groups say many organs are taken from prisoners without their consent or their family's knowledge, something the government denies.

A decrease in organ supply will also put more pressure on China's nascent donation system.

A transplant surgeon at Saturday's meeting from the nearby city of Nanjing, who asked to be identified by his last name, Li, said it was likely the new rules would limit the number of transplants they were able to carry out.

"There might be a temporary shortage of organs. If so, we will just have to do fewer transplants. There's nothing we can do about that. Other countries haven't solved that problem either," he said.

(Ben Blanchard reported from Beijing; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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China demands U.S. explain spying allegations linked to Australian missions

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is demanding an explanation from the United States after a report in an Australian newspaper said Australian embassies, including the one in Beijing, were being used as part of a U.S.-led spying operation.

The Sydney Morning Herald said on Thursday that the intelligence collection takes place in Australian embassies across Asia, as well as other diplomatic missions, without most Australian diplomats knowing about it.

"China is extremely concerned about this report and demands that the United States offers a clarification and explanation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.

"We also demand that foreign embassies in China and their staff respect the Vienna Convention ... and other international treaties and not get involved in any activities which do not accord with their status or post and harm China's security and interests," she added.

China and Australia had a consensus to increase cooperation, and both viewed the other as a development opportunity, Hua said.

"We hope and expect that Australia can work hard with China in this regard."

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to comment, saying: "It is the long-standing practice of Australian governments not to comment on intelligence matters".

China's own security services are widely believed to run a sophisticated communications tapping and surveillance operation, at least domestically, though the government denies accusations it tries to hack into overseas computer networks.

China, a major trading partner in the midst of negotiations on a free-trade agreement with Australia, expressed concern this week after Australia's newly elected government said it was upholding a ban on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from bidding for work on the country's $38 billion National Broadband Network.

The political uproar over alleged U.S. eavesdropping on close European allies produced an unusual defence from the National Security Agency this week - NSA Director General Keith Alexander said it was the Europeans themselves who did the spying, and then handed the data to the Americans.

Alexander's disclosure at a public congressional hearing marked yet another milestone in the NSA's emergence from the shadows to defend its electronic surveillance mission in the wake of damaging revelations by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Jane Wardell in SYDNEY; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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China security chief blames Uighur separatists for Tiananmen attack

By Megha Rajagopalan

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's domestic security chief believes a fatal vehicle crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in which five died was planned by a Uighur separatist group, designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and United Nations.

Meng Jianzhu, a member of the 25-member Politburo responsible for domestic security, said the East Turkestan Islamic Movement was behind the attack. This is the first time Beijing has accused the group of carrying out the attack.

On Monday, an SUV ploughed through bystanders on the edge of the capital's iconic Tiananmen Square and burst into flames, killing the three people in the car and two bystanders, in what the government called a terrorist attack.

Beijing police have arrested five people it says were radical Islamists who were planning a holy war. Security has been strengthened in both Beijing and in Xinjiang, the restive far western region the Muslim Uighurs call home.

"This violent terrorist incident that's happened in Beijing was organised and premeditated," said Meng told Hong Kong's Phoenix TV, in comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency on Friday.

"The group that stood behind the scenes inciting it was the East Turkestan Islamic Movement," Meng said.

Many Uighurs call Xinjiang East Turkestan, and the government often blames the frequent outbreaks of violence there on extremists agitating for an independent state.

Some experts have expressed scepticism about China's characterisation of the Tiananmen Square incident as a premeditated and coordinated attack.

"If it's a deliberate act, it's unsophisticated," said Joanne Smith Finley, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University who studies Xinjiang. "It doesn't carry any of the hallmarks that we would expect to see if it was something that was plotted and carefully deliberated with overseas extremists."

The United Nations and U.S. placed ETIM on lists of terrorist organisations after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The group entered the public eye ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when it claimed to have caused a series of fatal explosions across the country.

Police said the driver of the SUV as a man called Usmen Hasan, whose name suggests he is a Uighur, and said his mother and wife were in the car with him, along with devices filled with gasoline and a flag with "extreme religious content" on it.

At least 42 people were injured.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer told Reuters this week that caution should be exercised over the government's account, adding she did not believe any kind of organised extremist Islamic movement was operating in Xinjiang.

Xinjiang, a sprawling, desert-like region that borders Central Asian nations that were part of the former Soviet Union as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been beset by violence, blamed by China on Uighur separatists and extremists.

In 2009, nearly 200 people were killed in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi in rioting between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement has been accused by the United States and China of having ties to al Qaeda, but there is disagreement among security experts as to the nature of the enigmatic group and whether ties with al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations really exist.

Rights organisations have said there is little concrete evidence that the group has carried out most of the attacks it has been blamed for, and that Beijing uses the group as an excuse to push repressive policies on Uighurs. (Editing by Ben Blanchard and Michael Perry, additional reporting by Adam Rose)

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China police seek eight in connection with Tiananmen car crash

By Megha Rajagopalan

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police were scouring hotels in Beijing on Wednesday for eight people wanted in connection with the crash of an SUV at Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which authorities suspect may have been a suicide attack by people from the Xinjiang region.

A security guard at a guesthouse in Beijing that is owned by the local government of Karamay city in Xinjiang said the hotel had received a list of eight suspects to watch for.

Xinjiang, in the far west, is home to China's Uighur Muslim minority and borders the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Another employee at the guesthouse said police sent a notice to them on Tuesday, saying staff should be "cautious about Uighurs who check in at our hotel."

In Monday's crash, three people from Xinjiang are suspected to have driven the sport utility vehicle into a crowd of bystanders at Tiananmen Square, the iconic heart of the Chinese state, and set it on fire, two senior sources have told Reuters.

The three occupants and two tourists were killed and at least 38 people were injured, in what could be the first major suicide attack in China.

China has not said officially whether the incident was an attack or an accident.

Two hotels contacted by Reuters said authorities were also searching for five vehicles in connection with the suspects. They are also searching for a red motorcycle.

Beijing police did not reply to a faxed request for comment.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged people not to jump to conclusions when asked if the government believed that the Tiananmen crash was an attack carried out by Xinjiang extremists.

"Relevant departments are carrying out an investigation," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. ""We ought to wait for the results of the probe to come out."

A Chinese state newspaper reported in July that the government suspected Syrian opposition forces were training extremists from Xinjiang to carry out attacks in China.

Uighur activists have long criticised the Chinese government for repressing their language and culture, and say that they have been cut off from much of the economic investment in the oil and gas industry in their resource-rich home region.

"There has been an acceleration of Uighur unrest, and most of it stems from Chinese policy," said Michael Clarke, a professor at Griffith University in Australia who has studied the history and politics of Xinjiang. "The extension of economic modernisation to Xinjiang has gone hand in hand with marginalisation of the Uighurs."

"There really needs to be a reassessment of China's approach to Xinjiang," he added.

Uighur activists have said they fear the government will take advantage of the incident to inflict even more repressive policies on Uighurs all over the country.

"They have not stopped to investigate and find out the real truth of what happened," said Ilham Tohti, a Beijing-based Uighur economist and longtime critic of Chinese policy in Xinjiang. "Why is it that it has already been decided, in the media and by the public, that this is an act of terrorism by Uighurs?" (Additional reporting by Adam Rose and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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China suspects Tiananmen crash a suicide attack, sources say

By Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities investigating what could be Beijing's first major suicide attack searched on Tuesday for two men from Muslim-dominated Xinjiang after three people suspected to be from the restive region drove an SUV into a crowd at Tiananmen Square and set it on fire.

They killed themselves and two tourists on Monday in the square, the heart of China's power structure and the focal point of the mass 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations brutally crushed the military.

Police have spread a dragnet across the capital, checking hotels and vehicles, seeking two people suspected to be ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from Xinjiang in China's far west, on the borders of former Soviet Central Asia.

Two senior sources said on Tuesday the crash, which also injured 38 bystanders at perhaps the most closely guarded location in China, was suspected of being a suicide attack carried out by people from Xinjiang. It was initially believed to be an accident.

The sources did not specifically say the occupants were Uighurs, many of whom chafe at Chinese controls on their culture and religion.

"It looks like a pre-meditated suicide attack," said a source with direct knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to the foreign media.

There have been suicide bombings before in China, and in Beijing, mostly by people with personal grievances, but none have targeted the very heart of China's government like this appears to have.

China has blamed Uighur separatists and religious extremists for a series of attacks in Xinjiang, saying they want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan. Rights groups and exiles say China massively overstates the threat.

In 2009, nearly 200 people were killed in clashes between Uighurs and ethnic Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. But the unrest has never before spilled over into China's capital despite speculation in 1997 that Uighurs were to blame for a Beijing bus bomb that killed at least two people.

Uighurs are also not known to have previously carried out suicide attacks.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who is based in Washington, said in a statement that she was worried that Monday's crash would bring a fierce crackdown on her people.

Kadeer, who left China in 2005, heads an international Uighur exile organization called the World Uighur Congress, based in Germany. Her group urged calm and voiced concern that Chinese censorship would stop facts from coming out.

"The Chinese government will not hesitate to concoct a version of the incident in Beijing so as to further impose repressive measures on the Uighur people," she said.

Kadeer said China has used the international fight against terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as a pretext for a crackdown on the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

"There is no sign we will see anything different this time, even though evidence of what really happened yesterday is thin on the ground," she said in the statement from Washington.

'NO ACCIDENT'

China's government has given no official word on whether the incident was an accident or an attack. State media has mostly kept to reporting brief statements from the police and official Xinhua news agency giving a bare bones account of what happened, as is common for such sensitive events.

Police are still investigating and have yet to determine the identities of the three people in the sport utility vehicle but suspect they are from Xinjiang, according to the sources. The other dead were a Chinese man and a woman from the Philippines, both tourists.

However, Beijing police said late on Monday they were looking for two suspects from Xinjiang in connection with a "major incident" - though it was unclear if these were the people in the vehicle or accomplices still at large.

The sources said that the occupants were suspected of lighting a flammable substance in the vehicle.

"It was no accident. The jeep knocked down barricades and rammed into pedestrians. The three men had no plans to flee from the scene," said a source who has ties to the leadership.

A Reuters reporter at the scene at the time said he did not hear any gunshots.

On Monday night, hours after the fire, Beijing police issued a notice asking local hotels about suspicious guests who had checked in since October 1 and named two suspects it said were from Xinjiang. Four hotels told Reuters they had received the notice.

Judging by their names, the suspects appeared to be ethnic Uighurs.

"To prevent the suspected persons and vehicles from committing further crimes ... please notify law enforcement of any discovery of clues regarding these suspects and the vehicles," said the notice, which was widely circulated on Chinese microblogs.

Beijing police, contacted by telephone, declined to comment. On Monday, the police said on their official microblog only that they were investigating the accident, and did not say if they thought it was an attack.

Calls to the Xinjiang government went unanswered.

Barry Sautman, a political scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who has studied Xinjiang, said if it were confirmed as a suicide attack by Uighurs, it would be a first.

"Certainly there have been a lot of bombings carried out by Uighur groups, but none of them as far as I know have involved suicide," he said.

Ilham Tohti, a China-based ethnic Uighur economist and longtime critic of Chinese policy in Xinjiang, said Uighurs had been driven to take extreme measures by China's repression.

"The use of violent means happens because all other outlets for expression are gone. Uighurs do not have any representation, they have no means of self-expression," he told Reuters.

China denies mistreating any of its minority groups, saying they are guaranteed wide-ranging religious and cultural freedoms. Many rights groups say China has overplayed the threat posed to justify its tough controls in energy-rich Xinjiang, which lies strategically on the borders of Central Asia, India and Pakistan.

IN FRONT OF MAO'S PORTRAIT

Police said on Monday the sport utility vehicle veered off the road at the north of the square, crossed the barriers and caught fire almost directly in front of the main entrance of the Forbidden City, in front of a huge portrait of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

Pictures seen by Reuters showed that the vehicle appeared to have driven several hundred metres (yards) along the pedestrian pavement in front of the Forbidden City entrance before bursting into flames, knocking down people as it went.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be identified due to the incident's sensitive nature, said she saw the vehicle knock down three or four people, and that it had a white banner with black lettering on it streaming from the back.

"People started to panic, and all ran to hide in the toilet," she said. "Three or four minutes later I came out and could see black smoke, and the police had begun to clear people out."

While censors moved quickly to remove pictures of the incident from the popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, as often happens in stability-obsessed China, many images and accounts are still viewable a day after the event.

Beijing police stepped up checks on cars around the city in response to the incident, one police officer at a checkpoint on the border between Beijing and Hebei province told Reuters.

A state newspaper reported in July that the government suspected Syrian opposition forces were training extremists from Xinjiang to carry out attacks in China.

"They have been known to carry out attacks outside of Xinjiang," said Yang Shu, a terrorism expert at China's Lanzhou University.

"There have also been reports that East Turkestan elements have received training in Syria, so I would say the possibility does exist of a Xinjiang connection," he added.

(Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom, Adam Rose, Megha Rajagopalan and Michael Martina; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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China court upholds life sentence for Bo Xilai

By Michael Martina

JINAN, China (Reuters) - A court in eastern China rejected an appeal by ousted senior politician Bo Xilai on Friday and, as expected, upheld his life sentence on charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power.

It said the evidence against him was clear.

Bo, once a rising star in China's leadership circles who had cultivated a following through his populist, quasi-Maoist policies, was jailed for life in September after a dramatic fall from grace that shook the ruling Communist Party.

His career was stopped short last year by a murder scandal in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of poisoning a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who had been a family friend.

The high court Jinan in the eastern province of Shandong, where Bo was originally tried, said that it was satisfied the first trial had done justice in the case.

"This court verified the facts and evidence of the court of first instance," Shandong high court spokesman Hou Jianjun told a news conference.

"The reasons for appeal presented by Bo Xilai and the opinions of his counsel did not have factual and legal basis, and were not tenable."

The court "ruled to reject the appeal, and uphold the original judgment", Hou added. "The above ruling is the final judgment."

Bo's appeal against the guilty verdict was unlikely to have been successful. China's courts are controlled by the Communist Party, which had pronounced him guilty long ago.

He likely now has no further recourse to appeal, state media said, as he could only take his case to the Supreme Court in Beijing if he had been sentenced to death.

State television shows pictures of an apparently healthy Bo, with a slight smile on his face, both sitting and standing in court, and also of him being led out of the room by two towering policemen.

Bo will now be sent back to Qincheng jail, just north of Beijing, where fallen members of the elite are incarcerated, and will likely never be seen in public again, although he could be released on medical parole some day.

Hou said that four members of Bo's family had been in court, and that the hearing had been conducted with "normal order".

President Xi Jinping, who took office in March, will have wanted the Bo affair settled because the next few weeks are critical for his government.

At a party plenum next month, Xi will push for more economic reforms and he needs unstinting support from the party's elite 200-member Central Committee.

DOOMED CHALLENGE

The appeal was held behind closed doors and completed less than a month after being lodged, when it could theoretically have take up to two months, or longer.

Zhang Lifan, a political commentator, said the case was never about the crimes Bo had been charged with, which were actually very light considering the serious allegations against him, for example by victims of his zealous crackdown on organised crime.

"The real significance of this is that it shows that the highest authorities are not to be challenged. Any challenge to those authorities is doomed. I think this is very clear-cut," Zhang said.

Bo, 64, who was Communist Party chief of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, mounted an unexpectedly fiery defence during his trial, denouncing testimony against him by his wife as the ravings of a mad woman hoping to have her own sentence reduced.

He repeatedly said that he was not guilty of any of the charges, although he admitted making some bad decisions and shaming his country by his handling of former Chongqing police chief, Wang Lijun, who first told Bo that Gu had probably murdered Heywood.

Wang, who fled to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in February last year after confronting Bo with evidence that Gu was involved in the murder, was also jailed last year for covering up the crime.

The party has presented the Bo case as an example of its resolve to root out deep-seated corruption, a problem so serious Xi has warned it could threaten the party's survival.

(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in BEIJING; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Free our reporter, begs newspaper as China cracks down on journalists

By Megha Rajagopalan

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese newspaper pleaded with police on Wednesday to release an investigative reporter accused of defamation in an unusual public rebuke amid a wider government crackdown on freedom of expression.

The state-run New Express tabloid printed a front-page commentary begging police in the south-central city of Changsha to set reporter Chen Yongzhou free under the headline: "Please release him."

Chen was detained after writing more than a dozen stories criticizing the finances of a major state-owned construction equipment maker.

Chen's arrest, which coincides with new curbs on journalists, lawyers and internet users in China, throws into question the role of whistleblowers as the country's leadership moves to eradicate graft.

"When the government is cracking down on freedom of expression and arresting journalists ... it seems to cast serious doubt on how serious this anti-corruption drive is," said Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch.

Chen reported that Changsha-based Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co. Ltd. engaged in sales fraud, exaggerated its profits and used public relations to defame its competitors, accusations strongly denied by the company.

The commentary went viral on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog service, on Wednesday, and was republished by Chinese media with no obvious antagonism from censorship authorities.

Zoomlion said it had complained to the Changsha police about Chen following his stories.

"The reason we did it was to safeguard the legitimate rights of the company," Zoomlion vice president Sun Changjun told Reuters, declining further comment.

Media experts said the commentary was unusual but not highly controversial because the paper, published in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, was criticising Changsha authorities as opposed to the central government.

Changsha police did not specifically name Zoomlion, but said Chen was detained on defamation charges.

"New Express journalist Chen is suspected of the crime of damaging business reputation, and so on October 19 was detained by police according to the law," the city's public security bureau said in a posting on its microblog.

In the acerbic commentary, New Express alluded to state-owned Zoomlion's influence in Changsha.

"Even though Zoomlion is very strong and pays a lot of taxes in Changsha, we are still of the same class," the commentary said. "Uncle police, big brother Zoomlion, we beg you, please let Chen Yongzhou go."

A Chinese cartoonist was detained last week for criticising the government of the flood-stricken city of Yuyao using Weibo.

"BLACK HAND AT WORK"

New Express had become embroiled in an ongoing feud with Zoomlion over Chen's reporting, with a company employee publicly speculating that its hometown competitor Sany Group Co. Ltd. had planted Chen's stories. Sany has denied any wrongdoing.

"This is nothing but paid journalism, an alignment of interests - there is definitely a black hand at work behind the scenes," Gao Hui, an assistant to the chairman of Zoomlion, wrote on his microblog on July 16, leading the New Express to sue him for libel for repeatedly criticising Chen's reporting.

While state-run, the newspaper is one of many regional publications which generally have a more local focus than, for instance, the official Xinhua news agency that is more of a government mouthpiece with national reach.

In one article, published in May, Chen detailed what he called sales fraud by Zoomlion, based on information found in an anonymous USB drive delivered to the New Express. That caused the company's stock price to fall more than 5 percent, even though the company rejected the charge.

In a July statement on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Zoomlion said it had been under an "all-round malicious attack by its competitor" since the fourth quarter of 2012. It insisted there was nothing wrong with its books.

Analysts said the decision to detain a journalist, though not uncommon, is not made lightly.

"Zoomlion is a company that must have a strong and close relationship with authorities in Hunan," said Jin Zhong, publisher of Hong Kong-based Open Magazine.

The fierce competition between Sany and Zoomlion amid a slowdown in the construction equipment market has sometimes turned ugly, with each company saying the other engaged in corporate spying. Sany's chairman told a local reporter this year that Zoomlion was involved in kidnapping his son, a charge Zoomlion denied.

(Additional reporting by Fang Yan and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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West criticises, China defends human rights record at UN

By Stephanie Nebehay and Sui-Lee Wee

GENEVA/BEIJING (Reuters) - Western countries accused China on Tuesday of arresting activists, curbing Internet use and suppressing ethnic minorities, as the United Nations formally reviewed its rights record for the first time since Xi Jinping became president.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, which reviews all U.N. members every four years, convened in Geneva, where sharply opposing views of China's human rights record were exposed.

Uzra Zeya, acting assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department's bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, said China should cease using harassment, detention and arrest to silence human rights activists and their families and friends.

"We're concerned that China suppresses freedoms of assembly, association, religion and expression..., harasses, detains and punishes activists..., targets rights defenders' family members and friends and implements policies that undermine the human rights of ethnic minorities," Zeya said.

China's special envoy Wu Hailong, who led Beijing's delegation in Geneva, said talks with other countries in Geneva had been "open, candid... and cooperative."

But he added that some of the accusations levelled at China had been "based on misunderstandings and prejudices."

Hours before the session began, Tibetan activists scaled the building and unfurled a banner reading: "China fails human rights in Tibet - U.N. stand up for Tibet".

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said it was willing to work with other countries on human rights as long as it was in a spirit of mutual respect.

"But we firmly oppose those kinds of biased and malicious criticisms," she added, referring to the Tibetan protest.

U.N. security detained the four activists from Denmark and Britain for several hours, and a spokeswoman for Students for a Free Tibet later said they had not been charged and were expected to return to their home countries.

POVERTY A KEY CONCERN

China faces criticism from some Western countries including the United States for what they say is the religious repression of ethnic minorities, including Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs in the vast western Xinjiang region.

China has responded to unrest in both regions by intensifying a crackdown by security forces, and Xi, who took office in March, has showed no sign of easing harsh policies.

Echoing concerns voiced by Germany and Switzerland, British ambassador Karen Pierce called on China to further reduce the number of crimes carrying the death penalty.

A Chinese diplomat told the Geneva talks: "Our government decision is to retain the death penalty but exercise strict control of its use."

Wu said minority ethnic groups in China were treated fairly, and added that a priority for authorities was to reduce poverty.

"Nearly 100 million people live in poverty. Some of them don't even have enough food and clothes. There is a saying that a 'hungry crowd is an angry crowd'. Big problems will occur if we cannot feed the poor."

Activists voiced disappointment at China's position at the session. On Friday, its delegation is due to say which of the Council's recommendations it will accept or reject.

"I think that there wasn't really an openness to criticism," Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, told a news briefing. "It was clear from the Chinese delegation's responses that 'objective and frank' meant no criticism, or at least no criticism that they didn't control."

Some experts had thought the administration of Xi would be less hardline than his predecessors. Instead, critics say Xi has presided over a clamp down that has moved beyond the targeting of dissidents calling for political change.

For example, authorities have detained at least 16 activists who have demanded officials publicly disclose their wealth as well as scores of people accused of online "rumour-mongering".

"Xi Jinping has definitely taken the country backwards on human rights," prominent rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told Reuters.

The council has no binding powers. Its rotating membership of 47 states does not include China, although Beijing is expected to run for a place in early November. China's record was previously assessed in 2009 by the Geneva forum.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Megha Rajagopalan, Adam Rose, Michael Martina, and Beijing Newsroom; editing by Mike Collett-White)

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China arrests five for "rumours" online - Xinhua

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has arrested five people on charges of blackmail and spreading false information online, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday, as the government intensifies a campaign to banish rumours.

The Internet, and microblogs, have proven a potent alternative to China's tightly-censored state media as an outlet for grievances and a way to out corrupt officials.

But analysts say the ruling Communist Party's relative lack of control makes officials nervous.

Xinhua said Ge Qiwei, whom it called the leader of the group arrested, had posed as a journalist and tried to blackmail officials with negative information.

"He also fabricated and spread rumours to create trouble, which has severely smeared the image of local governments and disturbed social order," it added, quoting the prosecutor's office in the city of Hengyang in south-central Hunan province.

Hundreds of people have been detained in China since August, say Chinese media and rights groups, as the government has stepped up efforts to rein in online rumors. Most have been released, but some are still being held on criminal charges.

Xinhua said Ge, originally named Zhou Bo, had confessed and wrote, "The irresponsible spread of information has brought extreme negative effects to society."

Ge's targets were spread across the public and private sectors in more than 10 provinces and cities and the cases involved millions of yuan, it said, quoting the Hengyang procuratorate.

Ge, 29, was detained in late August. (Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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China crackdown to come under scrutiny at U.N. rights review

By Sui-Lee Wee

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's human rights record under President Xi Jinping will come under formal international scrutiny on Tuesday for the first time since he took power, with the main U.N. rights forum set to hear accusations that the government is expanding a crackdown on dissent.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, which reviews all U.N. members every four years, will give concerned countries a chance to challenge the administration of Xi, who some experts had thought would be less hardline than his predecessors.

Instead, critics say Xi has presided over a clampdown that has moved beyond the targeting of dissidents calling for political change. For example, authorities have detained at least 16 activists who have demanded officials publicly disclose their wealth as well as scores of people accused of online 'rumour-mongering".

"Xi Jinping has definitely taken the country backwards on human rights," prominent rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told Reuters.

"Look at the number of people who are being locked up and the measures that are being taken to lock them up."

China will make a presentation at the start of the debate in Geneva, during which diplomats will speak. Non-governmental organisations are not allowed to address the council but can submit reports, often echoed in country statements.

The council has no binding powers. Its rotating membership of 47 states does not include China, although Beijing is expected to run for a spot in about a month. The hearing will be the second time China has been assessed under a process that began in 2008.

Diplomats are likely to raise questions over China's crackdown on dissent, the death penalty and the use of torture among other topics, said Maya Wang, an Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Of special concern, Wang said, is the arrest in August of prominent activist Xu Zhiyong, who had called for officials to reveal their wealth. Wang also cited the September disappearance of Cao Shunli, who had helped stage a sit-in this year outside the Foreign Ministry to press for the public to be allowed to contribute to a national human rights report.

China had sent a large delegation to Geneva to engage in dialogue with an "open and frank attitude", Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference on Monday.

"If there are some criticisms, some constructive criticisms, the Chinese government will listen with an open mind and accept them and will give them serious consideration," she said.

"As for malicious, deliberate criticisms, of course we will uphold our own path and our own correct judgments."

In 2009, China rejected calls from Western and some Latin American nations to end the death penalty but agreed to suggestions from Cuba that it take firm action against "self-styled human rights defenders working against the Chinese state and people".

CRACKDOWN SPREADING

The ascendancy of Xi as Communist Party chief in a once-in-a-decade generational leadership transition last November gave many Chinese hope for political reform, spurring citizens to push officials to disclose their wealth in several movements throughout the country.

But the detention of activists making those calls is a strong indication the party will not tolerate any open challenge to its rule, even as it claims more transparency. The activists face trial on the charge of illegal assembly.

Hundreds of microbloggers, people who post short comments online, have also been detained since August in a campaign against "rumour-mongering", according to Chinese media and rights groups. Most have been released, but some are still being held on criminal charges.

On Sunday, Chinese police arrested Wang Gongquan, a well-known venture capitalist, Wang's lawyer, Chen Youxi, said on his microblog. Wang had helped lead a campaign for the release of another activist. Chen did not answer calls to his mobile phone.

"Before, officials used a selective form of suppression, which is to say, they mainly suppressed rights lawyers and dissidents," said Huang Qi, a veteran rights activist.

"But in the past few months what the government used to allow some people to say online - things that violated or exceeded the official view - has now been suppressed."

Li Fangping, a prominent rights lawyer, said China would likely win a seat on the council given its international influence.

"I don't believe that China is ready for that," Li said. "There are still a huge number of citizens for whom a lack of human rights is a growing problem." (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Megha Rajagopalan, Adam Rose and Beijing Newsroom and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva. Editing by Dean Yates)

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China to announce decision on Bo Xilai appeal on Friday

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in eastern China said it would announce a decision on Friday on whether to accept an appeal by ousted former senior politician Bo Xilai over his guilty verdict and life sentence on charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power.

Bo, once a rising star in China's leadership circles who had cultivated a following through his populist, quasi-Maoist policies, was jailed for life in September after a dramatic fall from grace that shook the ruling Communist Party.

His career was stopped short last year by a murder scandal in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of poisoning a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who had been a family friend.

In a brief statement posted on its website, the high court in the eastern province of Shandong, where Bo was first tried, said the decision would be announced on Friday at 10 a.m. It gave no other details.

Bo's guilty verdict is unlikely to be overturned as the courts are controlled by the Communist Party, which long ago pronounced him guilty. A source with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters it was unclear if Bo's sentence might be reduced.

"There is that possibility," said the source, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The source earlier had said that Bo appealed immediately after the sentence was announced. The court said in early October that it had formally accepted the appeal.

President Xi Jinping, who took office in March, will likely want the Bo affair settled because the next few weeks are critical for his government.

At a closed-door party plenum next month, Xi will push for more economic reforms and he needs unstinting support from the party's elite 200-member Central Committee.

Bo, 64, who was Communist Party chief of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, mounted an unexpectedly fiery defence during his trial, denouncing testimony against him by his wife as the ravings of a mad woman hoping to have her own sentence reduced.

He repeatedly said that he was not guilty of any of the charges, though he admitted making some bad decisions and shaming his country by his handling of former Chongqing police chief, Wang Lijun, who first told Bo that Gu had probably murdered Heywood.

Wang, who fled to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in February last year after confronting Bo with evidence that Gu was involved in the murder, was also jailed last year for covering up the crime.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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